Aboyne

Sister cities

• Martignas-sur-Jalle

History

The name "Aboyne" is derived from "Oboyne", first recorded in 1260, in turn derived from the Gaelic words "abh", "bo", and "fionn", meaning "[place by] white cow river". The village of Aboyne was founded by Charles Gordon, 1st Earl of Aboyne in 1671, who, in the same year, rebuilt the west wing of Aboyne Castle. The siting of the castle itself is related to the limited number of the crossings of the Mounth of the Grampian Mountains to the south. In 1715 Aboyne was the scene of a tinchal, or great hunt, organised by John Erskine, sixth Earl of Mar, on 3 September, as a cover for the gathering of Jacobite nobles and lairds to discuss a planned Jacobite rising. The uprising began three days later in Braemar. The former Aboyne Public School was used as a secondary school to the local area, but was notably used during WWII as an evacuee station for those coming from Glasgow. Local Aboyne children were educated in the morning and the evacuee children were educated in the afternoon. Any overflow evacuees were passed on to the nearby church hall, and as many as 1,250 were evacuated to the Deeside area in 1939.